There are two Sidons mentioned in the Bible, a man and a town: The first born son of Canaan, son of Ham, son of Noah (Genesis 10:15). These (-by) endings, effectively meant it was a village or settlement. Previously names relating to pagan religion were extensively studied as these were thought to be early. Beverley in East Yorkshire was named due to the Beavers that once resided along the banks of the river. French, English, Latin and Gaelic derived names occur in Canada. New Zealand place names derive mostly from Maori and from British sources. There are place names that advertise a mixture of Anglo-Saxon and Viking words for example Caws-ton (Kalf's town) or Grimton (Grim's town). These have replaced Pictish names that still occur on the east coast. Rotherham was the village by the Rother. Maine has 32, Vermont 36. Typically, this will be in one of the above ways; as the meaning of place-name is forgotten, it becomes changed to a name suitable for the new language. Many are Gaelic, but many are also from the Brythonic branch of Celtic languages (such as Ayr). Similarly, Negaunee, Michigan's name is derived from the Ojibwe word nigani meaning foremost, in advance, leading, which was determined to be the closest Ojibwe approximation to the English word pioneer. 18th and 19th century armchair historians, geographers and linguists wrote countless books to explain the etymology of place names. By Tim Lambert. Hamm tun meant hamlet by the water meadow. The historic market town of Stamford (Stone-crossing) is a surviving Anglo-Saxon settlement. In some cases the native meanings of a place name are wholly lost, despite guesses and theories, for example Tampa and Oregon. Replaced Old English stow and stede. Obviously, whether a name element was originally ham or hamm would make a major difference in meaning. Various names have been used for the island of Britain, see Britain (name). They may also have more linguistically diverse place names; for instance in England place names may have Pre-Celtic, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, or Norman-French origins. Version Française disponible ici Prénom Ham Evolution of the parent language may not change a place name by itself; indeed names may show more inertia to change than languages themselves. Other terms relate to the expansion of farming. In contrast, in the "New World" (roughly North America, South America, and Australasia), many place names' origins are known. The use of (-ley) in a place name indicates that the settlement originates from a forest clearing. Ireland is no exception, except that its placenames can trace their ancestry to three language families: Gaelic, English and Viking. This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional. At its most severe, the name may be completely replaced. Place names often need specialists to interpret their meanings. When Europeans began arriving in New Zealand from the 17th century they gave their own names to many geographical features and settlements, often after places in Britain or important settlers or famous British people. The vast majority of placenames in Ireland are anglicizations (adaptations to English phonology) of Irish language names. In much of the "Old World" (approximately Africa, Asia and Europe) the names of many places cannot easily be interpreted or understood;[citation needed] they do not convey any apparent meaning in the modern language of the area. These apply to both the names of settlements and natural features, although more so to the former. The processes by which place names change include abbreviation, conflation, convergence, development in the parent language (but stasis in the place name[vague]) and replacement of the parent language. Each country is divided into a number of counties. Massachusetts has the most, with at least 104 English names for cities, towns and counties, starting with Amesbury and ending with Yarmouth. Australian place names are mainly a mixture of aboriginal and British-derived toponyms. Additionally, the Anglo-Saxons used tree names in conjunction with ‘ley’, which means wood or clearing. Acton Acton comes from ac tun meaning oak farm or village. Most pre-modern settlement names contain a generic element describing the place's function (e.g. From an English surname that was originally derived from place names meaning "ash tree clearing", from a combination of Old English æsc and leah. There are several arguments connected with these place names. Stead The suffix “–stead” comes from the word “stede” or staddt if you look at the Germanic version of it, and it translates simply to “place”. Place names in the United States are often taken from the European nation that first colonized the land. In the 21st century, real estate developers often conduct historical research in order to craft a name for a modern development that connects to the local history of the community. You can use the Key to search for a particular place-name, or to browse through the names of a particular county. [21]. Bacillus botulinum was later placed in the genus Clostridium (from Greek kloster meaning spindle), while some debate still existed over the basis for the species name. However, often the name may be recycled and altered in some way. Fort Knox, Thunder Bay, Little Rock and so on. Related: Hammed; hamming. in. The case is slightly more ambiguous for natural features, depending on how exactly 'place' is defined, and what exactly the concept of a 'place' is used for. Place names in the United States tend to be more easily traceable to their origins, such as towns simply named after the founder or an important politician of the time, with no alterations except a simple suffix, like -town. The Author of this hub is well read in history, having studied history at University in England. At … Roman | Celtic | Saxon | Viking. It will provide you with a name's meaning and a break-down of the different parts of the name (its 'elements') and the language(s) of those elements. It was Beormund's eg. Abbreviation tends to break down a name into a more easily pronounced form, e.g. The use of (- ham) in a place name is a clear piece of evidence to suggest Anglo-Saxon involvement in its evolution. In some cases these are in fact related to their Welsh name, but disguised through linguistic processes of mutation, for example Monmouth and the Welsh Trefynwy both referring to the River Monnow (Mon- < Monnow < Mynwy > -fynwy). Places such as Luton, Bolton, Accrington, Malton and Stilton are towns that grew under the Anglo-Saxons. The British town Bristol was … Hamilton (plural Hamiltons) A United States ten-dollar bill2000 March 9, "time4funwithu" (username), "(ASP) New Orleans - Zoey, in alt.sex.prostitution, Usenet: I think the girls all work for $200 p/hr, give or take a few Hamiltons. and directly from Medieval Latin placea "place, spot," from Latin platea "courtyard, open space; broad way, avenue," from Greek plateia (hodos) "broad (way)," fem. [12] This discusses the many elements of topographical place names, with updates in 1988 and 1997. Andrew Stewart (author) from England on January 29, 2018: Thanks Jorge, even my home city managed to make it across the Atlantic- Peterborough. The scholars of Oxford renamed the upper course of the River Thames running through Oxford to Dorchester-on-Thames as the "Isis", owing to an incorrect assumption that the Latin name of the river, Tamesis, represented a combination of "Thame" (a river that joins the Thames at Dorchester) and "Isis". English: topographic name from Old English hamm, denoting a patch of flat, low-lying alluvial land beside a stream (often a promontory or water meadow in a river bend), or a habitational name from any of numerous places named with this word, for example in Gloucestershire, Greater London, Kent, Somerset, and Wiltshire. If you know the meaning of a place name that is not here, you are encouraged to submit it. In lowland Scotland, names are of more diverse origin. There are identifiable processes which occur over time to place names, and which alter the place names in such a way that their original meanings are lost. Chester - 'Deva', Winchester - 'Venta Belgarum' etc.). Roman Terms: 50BC - 410 AD. The Book Of London Place Names, an excellent guide by Caroline Taggart; Map of Anglo Saxon London (by Londonist) What's In A Name?, a predictably named etymology … In the two thousand years since the Romans founded it, London has survived and thrived. The use of (-ton) in a place name harks back to a time on enclosed settlements. report. Note: at this point this site's collection is quite small and somewhat uneven. For example, Derby can be broken down to this basic explanation. Colchester is a prime example. Many names that have been transferred from Britain, as is the case with Barnstable, Massachusetts and Danbury, Connecticut. If, for whatever reason, a new language becomes spoken in the area, a place name may lose all meaning. However, some apparent meanings may be deceptive; New York was not directly named after the English city of York but after the Duke of York, who was the head of the British Navy at the time of the British take-over, and Los Angeles was not named after angels but after the Virgin Mary, or the Queen of the Angels (El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles). 3. Some of the main problems are: The names of natural or man-made features in the landscape tend to be older than those of settlements since the former are often more widely known. In Shropshire and Herefordshire many Welsh place names are found in the borderlands such as Pontrilas and Trefonen. In the Anglo-Saxon language the word hamm meant water meadow. Old Norse Origin Place Names Home » Names. Cambridge, perhaps uniquely, illustrates both effects: originally Grontabricc, a bridge on the Granta, the name became Cantebruge and then Cambrugge, from which the river was renamed Cam. Names were given to springs, streams, rivers and lakes as well as marshes, bays and seas. For instance, if a name no longer means anything in the modified language, it may drift towards a new form; e.g. Specific (personal or animal) names and general words or phrases are used, sometimes translated and sometimes not. Jurisdictional terms of seats of government, justice, or punishment 4. Most place-names are of Gaelic or Norse origin but there are traces of an earlier language in some names. Water was of major importance to the early settlers of an area, both for subsistence and for religious reasons. Many, many place names in New England came from places in England. The answer is No. Many others are of French origin, such as Detroit, Michigan, which was established along the banks of the river they called le détroit du lac Érié, meaning the strait of Lake Erie. Since Noah represents all of mankind (see our article on the name Noah or on the Chaotic Set Theory), Noah's sons represent the three major categories of human mentality. place (n.) c. 1200, "space, dimensional extent, room, area," from Old French place "place, spot" (12c.) The is no black and white facts when it comes to history. . Land characteristics were important to both hunters and farmers, and there are many terms relating to different types of hills and valleys. Many of the native British place names have been lost to us but the foreign tongue of the recent occupier often allude to the nature of the environment. Most place names derive from Norman-French. In the north and east, there are many place names of Norse origin; similarly, these contain many personal names. Any place which has caistor or chester in their name usually denotes a settlement with a direct link to the Roman Military encampments. In Cornwall most place-names are Cornish in origin, whilst in Cumbria there remain a number of place names in Cumbric, the Brythonic language of this region; examples including Carlisle, Helvellyn and Blencathra. The exceptions are places with the prefix Llan, meaning 'Church', which often contain the name of the Saint the church is dedicated to e.g. Etymology can be a game of probabilities. In The Danelaw, the prefix is often the name of theperson who held that settlement. Between 1880 and 2018 there were 7 births of Ham in the countries below, which represents an average of 0 birth of children bearing the first name Ham per year on average throughout this period. More Filters. Recently there has been a movement to revive some Maori names. Amsterdam ('River Amstel dam'), Liechtenstein ('Light-stone'), Copenhagen ('Merchants' harbour), Paris ('Home of the Parisii'), Shanghai (approximately 'Seaport'), Tashkent ('Stone city'). HAMPTON. Originally, This page was last edited on 21 December 2020, at 13:17. This thread is archived. The byname Becca means "pickaxe" in Old English. Swaledale) clearly represents a definable geographic location. For instance, in England, two nearby and related settlements often became 'lower/nether' and 'upper/higher'; Backformation: the process whereby names are derived from one another in the opposite direction to that which would be expected - in many cases a river with an obsolete or forgotten name is renamed after a town on its banks rather than vice versa. THE ORIGIN OF PLACE NAMES IN LONDON. For example, the river running through Rochdale became known as the 'Roch' through this process. Llansantffraid - 'Church of St. Bridget'. The Old English ham which means variously "homestead, village, manor, estate" (Mills, p. 381) and hamm which means "enclosure, land hemmed by water or marsh or higher ground, land in a river­bend, river­meadow, promontory" (Mills, p. 381) both appear as ­ham in modern names. Until the 1960s it was more commonly given to boys in the United States, but it is now most often used on girls. In the islands of Scotland, particularly Orkney and Shetland, but also the Western Isles, there are many names of Norse origin; this is also true of the coasts of the mainland. The word eg meant an island, a promontory of land or in this case an 'island' of dry land surrounded by marsh. The “ham” suffix in a place name is widely accepted to mean “home” or “settlement” from an etymological point of view, although it can also be interpreted as meaning “town” in a … There are also place names from Old English and Scots, such as Edinburgh. Most places ending in –ham, –ton or –ington are named after otherwise forgotten Anglo-Saxon chiefs. Replacement of the parent language is one of the most dramatic processes of change. Barking Barking was Berica ingas, which means Berica's people. The area that incorporates Yorkshire, East Anglia, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire show heavy Viking settlement in their place names, this is due to the existence of the Danelaw between the ninth and eleventh century. Along the south coast of Wales, where English has historically been more widely spoken, many place names are commonly anglicized, such as Pontypool, derived from Pont-y-Pŵl. 80% Upvoted. “Another volume for every local historian's bookshelf” - Local HistorianThis revised edition of the Dictionary of British Place-Names includes over 17,000 engaging and informative entries, tracing the development of the featured place-names from earliest times to the present day. Place names ending in -by , such as Selby, Grimsby, Derby or Whitby are places that the Vikings first settled. ham (v.) "over-act in performance," 1933, from ham (n.2). The origin of place names of the countries within Britain are discussed below. The Norse settlers also added other place names to the landscape. Here are a few settlements with its translation. This is a list of place names in which the origin is Old Norse. -ham, -ton, and -hampton as place name suffixes. They also named geographical features for … These settlements were usually on the margins of existing villages and were usually thought of as undesirable land( e.g Flood plains). Nine counties in the U.S. state of Michigan have names invented by Henry Schoolcraft, usually adapted from parts of Native American words, but sometimes having parts from Greek, Arabic and Latin roots. These basic elements can also be found in place names in other countries; e.g. Other examples include Manchester and Cirencester. This article lists a number of common generic forms in place names in the British Isles, … From the portrait of Alexander Hamilton featured on them.. Noun []. Shem stands for the mindset that allows a worldview irrespective of the self. There is a high level of personal names within the place names, presumably the names of local landowners at the time of naming. With every successive immigration, we find a different way to describe the land. Most old Roman settlements, whether actually inhabited or not, were given the title of -chester/caster in Anglo-Saxon (from the Latin castrum, 'camp' or its plural form castra); the specific names for each may only have little relation to the Roman names (e.g. In general, the Anglo-Saxon and Norse place names tend to be rather mundane in origin, the most common types being [personal name + settlement/farm/place] or [type of farm + farm/settlement] (almost all towns ending in -wich, -ton, -ham, … Countries which have seen repeated large-scale cultural and/or linguistic changes, such as England or France, tend to have more broken down place names, as the original meaning is forgotten and drifts more quickly. Another class studied was those relating to particular people, example: the Ancient British. Ham also had a sports slang sense of "incompetent pugilist" (1888), perhaps from the notion in ham-fisted. Ham 1 (spelled חם and probably pronounced as Cham) is the youngest son of Noah (Genesis 9:24). The Vikings were responsible for originating the names of many English towns and villages. The latter in particular can result in dramatic shifts in place names, since the original meaning (and often sounds) are not conveyed in the new language, the place name thus shifts to a form appropriate for the new language. Virtually all of the place names decided on up to around the 14th Century were due to the environment of the area. Some historians have argued that the Viking invasions involved very large numbers of people because there are so many Viking place names. A great many names that appear to be Native American in origin were created by non-Natives with at best a rudimentary grasp of native languages. Many topographic elements become incorporated into settlement names, together with plant, creature names or personal names. Kettering - The Place of Ketter's people. Connecticut 31, including Hartford, an archaic spelling of Hertford (the birthplace of one of Thomas Hooker’s assistants, the Rev. Life would have continued without too much drastic change, but new words would enter the embryonic English language and they would appear in the names of new settlements. Etymology. Old Norse was the North Germanic language spoken by the peoples of ancient Scandinavia. That notwithstanding, it is probable that the origins of the names of both settlements and natural features is the same, namely to distinguish one from another; and thus that both should be considered place names. Other experts have argued that once the Viking language became the main language of the region, place names would naturally be named using Viking words. Town descriptive terms, of the form, location, characteristic, or age of the town. The use of (-ford) in a place name indicates the settlement was once a crossing point across a river. … Other English places with Roman origins in their name include... Over the passage of time, these settlements have become anglicized but the route of the name is very clear. This article is about the origins of place names themselves. William The Conqueror army was only 33% Norman + 33% French + 33% Welsh speaking Bretons. Stow The word “stow” or “stowe”found in several place names including “Stow-on-the-Wold” and Walthamstow, simply means “place of assembly”. HAM. The capital city of England rests upon the foundations of the Roman town of Londinium. Many other types of place name can be defined, for example those relating to tribal or personal names. There is a high level of personal names within the place names, presumably the names of local landowners at the time of naming. Other place-names are hybrids of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon elements. type. Cambridge perhaps uniquely illustrates both normal and back formation. It gave its name … Conflation is where two similar elements of place names become confused, for instance the Old English roots, Convergence occurs when place names drift towards other familiar phonemes in place names; e.g. However, evolution of the parent language permits other processes to occur. A good example of this is England's second city- Birmingham. In Yorkshire alone there are over 200 (-by) place names, this was due to the large Yorkshire coastline acting as a gateway to fresh settlement from Scandinavia. Manchester, future home of the Northern Powerhouse. Origins of Place Names. For instance, a relatively small, distinct upland valley (e.g. A famous bearer is retired English soccer player David Beckham (1975-). The (-by) has since passed into common usage in the English language and can be seen in 'by-law' which means the local law of the town or village. Southampton was hamm tun then Hamtun. England has been linguistically shaped by the Norman Conquest, Viking settlement, Anglo-Saxon invasion and Roman occupation. This is due to a general set of processes through which place names evolve over time, until their obvious meaning is lost. Ham and ton are regularly combined in Anglo-Saxon names, and Northampton and Littehampton are prominent examples of this. Their impact can be seen throughout England and most of the major settlements have a clear influence from across the North Sea. Other cities and towns with a similar heritage are Bradford, Thetford and Sleaford. Most English place-names are made up of two elements (though some are threeor more). (Click herefor a complete list of U.S. places named after places in England.) Therefore was England truly conquered in 1066 by a foreign power? Many a ham and tun was also named for a person, such as Birmingham, the ham of Beorma’s people (Beormingas). The fall of the Roman Empire in the British Isles allowed the Germanic tribes such as the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes to take over huge swathes of the southern half of the British Isles. Glad you found it interesting. Many in the former New Netherland colony are of Dutch origin, such as Harlem, Brooklyn and Rhode Island. If so, why combine the two into a place name like Southampton or Northampton? Oakham and Hexham are further examples. However, the broad, extended valley of a major river, such as the Trent, is not easily understood as a single location. The vast majority of place names in Wales are Welsh by origin, containing elements such as Llan-, Aber-, Pen- etc. The name of a place provides hints not only about who used to live there, but about how they made their living, who their leaders were and what gods they worshiped. This indicates "people" in a place name. The Maori named most of New Zealand's natural features. Man-made landscape features that have been given names include roads and trackways as well as burial mounds, etc. 'farm', 'market', 'fort') or a prominent natural feature, or both; if only one of these is present, it is often modified by a personal name or an adjective. Toponymy, taxonomic study of place-names, based on etymological, historical, and geographical information.A place-name is a word or words used to indicate, denote, or identify a geographic locality such as a town, river, or mountain. 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